Un-Go
Sep 13, 2012By the Gods, when will they learn?
UN-GO is yet another detective show which THANK GOODNESS doesn’t have lolis. Do you know there have been 5 loli detective shows in less than a year? (Milky Holmes, Gosick, Dantalian, Kamisama Memo-chou, and Hidan no Aria). And they were all equally fan catering crap too. Though despite the lack of lolis in UN-GO, it ain’t any better when it comes to detective work. Why? Because we NEVER SEE THE LINE OF THOUGHT!
A good detective story needs its time, its hints, its analysis of clues, and above all it needs to retain a big portion of realism. Well this anime, just like all detective anime before it, does very little in all these departments.
- The cases last only one episode. Barely enough time to think of anything before the whole thing ends right away. Where is the excitement in that?
- The hints were there but when the characters reached to the verdict, it’s as if they all had an epiphany and the answers came to them at that very moment.
- Realism flew out the window by having the hero detective to need the services of a little boy dressed as a clown. It magically transforms into an adult woman clown, which has a magical brainwashing power and forces the suspects into revealing the truth without being able to lie or not reply. Great deduction job you guys; just inject truth serum in the whole cast for all we care.
This is not a detective show. IT IS BULLSHIT! There isn’t a shred of realism or plausibility in it so how can you possibly enjoy it? For the transvestite boy-turned-Lady Gaga fetish? Or maybe for the seemingly serious war setting which is raped by the said magical transvestite? The whole setting is gone to waste by inserting all this magic nonsense.
The same applies to the cast. The suspects are constantly changing and the main ones don’t evolve much so there is no real focus given to any of them.
BAH! If you want good detective shows, anime shows are not the proper place to look for them. They always throw in magic and brainwashing that destroys all the proper mood. Just as the name implied, don’t GO for it.
p.s.: The production values are good; a thing which went totally unnoticed because of the crap I witnessed.
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To add to my previous comment, I do think that at least the anime format is, practically-speaking, not exactly good for detective-style anime. With the 12-episode format it means that the anime is very unlikely to be animated properly. In my opinion the right balance is related to what you said - when it's a REALISTIC pace.
I agree that mystery/detective anime typically may require much more effort to write as opposed to your typical isekai. If there isn't a logical and slow process then it's very difficult to have something that creates any kind of tension or buildup.
A carefully-written and slow story is almost universally better when it comes to any crime-related stories. Excess details can be skipped if the person chooses to but the point is that things are the best when the detectives perform eye-opening work. A quick start and finish aint it.